PART 2

But in the blink of an eye, everything changed!

The bushes erupted outward in a wild wave of flying green leaves, snapping twigs, and flying dirt.

Out burst Big Mongo, the giant silverback leader of the entire mountain troop and Koko’s intimidating father.

Mongo weighed over four hundred pounds, with shoulders as broad as a boulder and a face that looked as though it were carved from solid granite.

He let out a chest-thumping roar that rattled the very leaves on Koko’s tree and sent birds flying in panic across the canopy. 🦍

“KOKO!” Mongo’s rumble echoed, vibrating through the ground and making Koko’s teeth rattle.

The giant silverback slid to a sudden halt right in front of the strange, glowing metallic box.

He immediately placed his massive, muscular body directly between the box and the tree where Koko was clinging for life.

Koko squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could, ducking his small head low behind the thick mossy trunk.

He knew he was in deep, unmitigated trouble now.

Not only had he snuck away from his nest without permission during nap time, but he had also summoned a mysterious glowing box that was now scanning his terrifying father.

Mongo glared down at the device, his nostrils flaring wide and his dark, heavy brow furrowed in intense concentration.

The blue light on the box flickered rapidly as the green scanner beam swept over Mongo’s massive, fur-covered chest.

“Target identified: Male Mountain Gorilla, Alpha classification,” the mechanical voice chimed clearly from the box’s tiny speaker.

Mongo tilted his huge head to the side, his dark eyes squinting at the small plastic grill where the voice came from.

In his entire thirty years of ruling the forest, he had never heard a square rock talk before.

He leaned down slowly and sniffed the air around it, smelling plastic, copper wiring, battery acid, and a faint trace of human scent.

Then, Mongo did something that Koko never in a million years expected to see.

Instead of smashing the strange box into a thousand tiny pieces with his giant, rock-hard fist, Mongo lowered his head.

He carefully extended one thick, leathery index finger toward the glowing panel on top.

With supreme gentleness for a giant of his size, Mongo poked the box.